Blood Twist (The Erris Coven Series) (8 page)

It was
okay that she didn’t find him attractive
; just
being with her for his last
day was enough.
Closing
his eyes,
he imagined
how amazing it would have been to dream of Liz and
to
become
her fate-partner
the way
Lexie and Torin
did
.
With
Liz’s spunk, he would have been able to let go of his past and start living.

W
hat would happen when he
died?
Would he be reborn into his family or would he find his way through
the
afterlife?
With all of the stories and legends that encompassed his ancestry, very little was said about the death of a damphyr.

As he sat in stillness, his memories took him back to when he was just ten years old. His boarding school in Nova Scotia had been his home for three months when one cold November evening he wa
s sitting alone o
n his bed
after lights-out had been called. With his cousins asleep in their private rooms just down the hall, he had stayed awake reading whe
n his young ears first heard a
distinguishable thump outside his third floor window.

A
t first he thought it was an owl
,
or perhaps a bat, losing its direction and flying into his window.
Then a scratching sound
grated
against the glass. Trying to swallow back his fear, he hurriedly reached out to shut his bed side lamp off
.
Fighting his instincts
to run, he forced himself to stay put and pretend to sleep. Afte
r a while the
scraping
ceased and
he chastised himself for being a baby – but not for long.

Suddenly, the
window s
ill rattled
and
squealed
as it
shot
up
.
Braden froze
to his bed, his small chest hammering beneath the covers.  Very slowly, he peeled back the fleece blanket tha
t
hi
d his face
. Edging up on his elbows
, h
e
peered into
the dark
ness at the
figure
bending and twisting its way through
the opening.

His lips parted
, but
he
couldn’t make a sound. As the shape slid forward on the floor and rose up beside him in the bed,
painful
ly familiar eyes burrowed from dark sockets deep into his
own
.

A rapi
d knock at the door startled Braden
from
his recollection
.
He tried swallowing, his throat burned with hunger.
The memory of that night still
unnerved
him. It wasn’t the last time he had been visited by the fien
d at school
, but it was the only time he had actually seen him. He had been there two more times, leaving notes in his room
to serve as reminders of how his life could end
at any time.

Just
last spring,
the night before graduating from his final year – the creature came to leave
behind
a number
where he expected to be reached
.
 

All th
ree times
,
the sam
e
instructions were
forced
upon him
. H
e was to come forward after his eighteenth birthday
: h
e wasn’
t to wai
t,
he wasn’t to make excuses. If he didn’t
do as instructed
, then the draugr would meet
him in Erris.

Braden pulled himself into a standing position and moved carefully to the door. Through its
aluminum
plating, he
could smell th
e sickening stench of cooked mea
t and tomatoes.
His nose burned, t
he delivery man didn’t smell much better. Counting to ten, Braden
pushed
back his desire to feed
, before opening the door.
How he could think of blood at this point was
incomprehensible.

With the smell of pizza wafting through the room,
Liz emerged from the
bathroom.
She shook her raven tresses
lo
o
se from the towel,
f
illing
the room with her lo
vely
vanilla
scent.

Her black cargos and tank had been replaced with
a
koi fish tee and cotton shorts.
He hadn’
t expected her to
look so different without her custom
eyeliner and
smoky
shadow, but her
creamy
skin was
flawless
.
The green
tint
in her hazel eyes stood in contrast to the richness of her
dark
hair.

“You ordered pizza. You must be a mind reader or something. It’s perfect.”
As she dragged her round brush through her
curls
, she smiled up at him.
Once again,
Braden
was stunned with just how
truly beautiful
she was
.

It was
a shame he would never tell her.

10

LIZ

Liz’s belly rumbled in response to
the deliciou
s scent of pizza
. Opening the box, her eyes feasted on a pie covered with melted cheese, sausage and
caramelized
onions.  Not having eaten since the plane, she was thankful
Braden thought to order something for her.

“How did you know these were my favorite toppings?” she asked while nibbling
on a round piece of meat.

“When I used to eat cooked food, it was my favorite,” he replied with a
n
easy
smile.
“It was a guess.”

Liz glanced around the room.
I
t didn’t appear Braden ordered anything for himself. She watched him
closely
, noticing the
subtle tension
behind his expression. She hoped he felt okay
.

Maybe he’s hungr
y?

For a brief second Liz
questioned
if he was safe to be alone with, but
dismissed the thought as soon as it entered h
er
mind.
Braden coul
d be dangerous, but there was a part of her that
inherently knew she was safe
.

“So, you said you don’t eat foods that have been cooked. Is there something we can get you to eat tonight other than
blood
?”
She tried sounding practical and unfazed by his dietary needs, but the words felt funny as they passed her lips. 

Braden turned his
sultry
bl
ue eyes on her and just smiled without saying anything. She couldn’t help but flush under his gaze.
Warmth
spread through her,
sending little tingles down her spine
.

“They might have some trail mix
outside
in the vending machine or something,” she mumbled.

“I’m not hungry
,” he replie
d, still watching her.

She bit into her pizza. The oozing cheese had lost its appeal, but she needed to stop noticing how attra
ctive
Braden
was in his
distressed jeans and Abercrombie tee shirt
.  It was funny how the more time she spent w
ith him, the more
desirable
she found him. He wasn’t even her type
. 

I
can admire him just for tonight, but tomorrow, back to business
.

“
So, what do you do when you’re not chasing werewolves?” she asked, opening her can of Mt. Dew. “Does your family hang out with other damphyrs?”

“We try to stay under the radar.
The only other damphyrs
are our elders in Eire.
” Braden sat as still as a statue in the chair, but his
impassioned stare
left her unnerved.

Liz shook her head, trying to understand. “
So your
ancestors
are
the only family of half-vampires, ever?”

“There was once a good sized family
of them in Southeastern Europe who
had settlements
mostly
in Greece and Turkey.
” He
stared at
her mouth as she carefully chewed.
“
My
relations
made contact with
them
– but they
were hunted down to
extinct
ion
over two hundred years ago.
Their origin was a bit different than our own
, but essentially we were the same
.
They didn’t drink from humans either.
”

Liz couldn’t help but detect the
note of sadness
in his voice. What was it like to be so different?

She thought of her own life, being abandoned by her mother and sent away by her father. She never felt like she was a part of the typic
al nuclear family with a mom,
dad and 2.5 children
. Instead, she struggled
to play catch up with her friends who had parents and siblings, ev
en a childhood home. She
pretend
ed
to relate
to those things, but never
d
id
. Perhaps as a damphyr, Braden had to do the same thing.

Make believe. 

“What about you?” he asked, lifting himself from the chair. “Lexie said you live with your aunt. Is she nice?
” Braden
wandered
around the room. H
e picked up a travel brochure displayed on the TV cabinet, glanced at it briefly
, and then placed
it back on the stand.

“Aunt Bev is okay.”
Liz closed up the pizza box
. “She puts up with me anyway. She never wanted to have children, especially a gangly adolescent
, but
the Captain decided she was better suited to handle me since she had ovaries and everything.”

“Why do you call your father Captain?”
Braden asked.

“It started out as a joke.
He’s a Navy man, so h
is men always called
him Captain,
” Liz
explained
,
placing
the
greasy
box
on the small table by the window.
“
It was hard to get his attention, so one day when I was ten, I thought I woul
d call him
by his title
and see what happened
.
But, he didn’t even notice. That’s when I
stopped calling him Dad.”

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “You deserve better than that.”

Liz wanted to shake it off and pretend it didn’t matter. She usuall
y masked her hur
t feelings regarding her only parental
, but
for the first time,
decided not to. Instead she just smiled at Brade
n without saying more
.
H
is words were
sweet and it was nice to know he meant them. Some people will say things because they pity you, but she could tell he
cared.

Liz sat back down on th
e bed. Although it was
midafternoon
in Vancouver,
because of the time difference and her early morning, it fe
l
t like late evening.
Pulling the covers back, she
slipped in between the cool sheets. Perhaps they could watch a movie or nap for a while
before going out for some fun
.